Defsounds

Dear Ms. Steffans,

I felt compelled to write this letter for a couple of reasons, mainly due to the fact that I – and much of the Hip Hop community judging from their responses to your media-seeking attempts – am sick and tired of you. Now, please do not misconstrue this as “hating” or “jealousy” or any other misappropriate verb and adjective certain people in the Hip Hop community ascribe to others. Rather, as a woman, as a student, as a future mother and wife, and most relevantly, as a Hip Hop writer, I would like to ask you to get a grip on reality and perhaps begin actual self-reflection instead of the futile attempts you have publicized over the recent years.

I understand that you receive much criticism from men. Perhaps you assume that is because they are aligned with their male comrades, whether those be basketball players or rappers. On the contrary, many of these men – just like women – are annoyed with your consistent quest for media attention, your feeble attempt at re-establishing yourself as a lady, and perhaps most of all, your inconsiderate behavior toward your son, making him a spectacle in your miserable ways to acquire money from the public. I think perhaps more important than your own dignity, should be your concern for your son for he will become a teenager, and his peers will begin to not only ask questions about you, but taunt him, verbally abuse him and disrespect him due to your actions. I cannot speak for his father, but I also imagine that your actions are a consistent embarrassment to him and his family. So this isn’t about gender, for I am a female myself. This perhaps, at the most basic level, is about truth and lies.

I have not read any of your publications, nor do I see the necessity to do so (there are far more important books and articles I would pick up before indulging in your expeditions). However, due to the past interviews I’ve conducted on a similar subject, I’ve familiarized myself with your story. I’m not sure whether in your heart you believe that you are actually guiding young women – or that you yourself have changed ways – but once again, your attempts are futile for the following reasons: firstly, girls, whether troubled or not, will look up to Oprah, Michelle Obama, Hillary Clinton, Christiane Amanpour and Mia Hamm long before they will ever take your advice. The simple reason being is that these women retained their dignity and continue to do so while being successful. Their success comes from long and hard work in which their dignity is strengthened as opposed to hedonistic encounters and repulsive practices. You are not a qualified expert neither in psychology nor sociology, and for you to attempt to give young women advice is frightening for numerous reasons that are self-evident to many except you.

Secondly, I have no authority or place to speak upon your personal life and address the claim that you have changed your promiscuous ways; however, you are consistently in the Hip Hop media in reference to dating or speaking against this man or that one, and once again, without shame or dignity seeking media attention - as is the case for example with your recent video blog which accused Jermaine O’Neal of sexual harassment. I doubt that many sane people would condone a woman getting sexually harassed, no matter what she has done in her past; but instead of confronting him – and his wife for that matter – about his behavior, you felt the need to tell US. That is, people who know neither you nor him, and people who care not about neither you nor him.

Below is your own quote published by Vibe Magazine in reference to your then-boyfriend, comedian Bill Maher:

"Bill wants someone he can put down in an argument, tell you how ghetto you are, how big your butt is, and that you're an idiot. That's why you never see him with a white girl or an intellectual. I might as well have been a Muslim woman with my head wrapped, walking 10 paces behind my man. [But] I couldn't be 'Bill Maher's girlfriend' any more - not when I'm Karrine Steffans . . . best-selling author."

Karrine, I assure you, if you were a Muslim woman in America – covered up completely or partially – Jermaine O’Neal would have never felt the need to grab anything of yours; that, I am for certain. So please, instead of attempting to disrespect the Muslim women who base their behavior on humility (look up that word on Websters), you choose to disrespect something you have no understanding of. That is why dear, you are still treated as you are to this day, and you have not come across a dignified man who is willing to respect you and treat you as women should be respected and treated: because you just don’t get it.

I am not in the habit of attacking people publicly. You’re a horrible role model for women young and old, white and black, and I felt the need to call you out on it; perhaps even a pathetic duty. And in reference to the nugatory excuses you and others who unfortunately sympathize with you keep making, your past may explain the reasons as to why you chose the path which you took in life, but please, do not for a second attempt to justify yourself. Stripping to supposedly feed your son is a pathetic defense just as “stripping to pay tuition” is the dumbest excuse created by a h** in heels. Being poor and abused in America is not the struggle you made it seem to be for there are job opportunities – no matter how much or little they pay – around every corner. You chose the road of least resistance and there is only one person to blame. If you would like for me to put you in touch with genocide survivors, rape survivors, people who have witnessed their mother and father massacred in nations which have seen strife much worse than America’s, please let me know and I will most definitely do so. I also recommend that you visit one of United Nations Refugee camps if you are ever granted an opportunity, and speak to those women, those survivors, while discussing their plight.

And please, stop lying to the youth.

Sincerely,

Mina Jasarevic.